“Annabelle, you’re so warm. I can feel the blood come into your cheek through mine. I can feel your heart beating against my chest.” He presses his face even closer to mine, so the corners of our lips touch. I fight off the urge to turn toward him. I don’t want to break the link.
“What do you see when you look in the mirror, Anthony?”
“I see myself when I’m with you, like I never was in life, like I never have been before or will be again.”
I look into the mirror and see two dark-haired teenagers, one girl and one boy. What are we when we’re together? I can’t think of a word that describes us. “You’re more than just the ghost of the Lonesome Boy.”
“I’m not lonesome anymore. I’m here with you.”
“Yes. Tonight you’re here with me.”
“Not just tonight, Annabelle. I’ll hold you close, in my heart, forever.”
I step back and Anthony extinguishes the candle without blowing it out or touching it.
“That’s unnerving.” I flick up the light switch and blink, because of the glare. When my eyes finally adjust to the brightness, I’m staring up into my father’s face. And he looks pretty pissed off.
Anthony flees like a coward, leaving Wyatt to deal with the situation. My boyfriend stretches his mouth into the widest, most rigid grin anyone has ever grinned. His parted lips reveal a wall of shiny white teeth and his face looks paralyzed. We three stand there for a full minute in silence and Wyatt continues to smile stiffly, like he has rigor mortis.
My dad speaks first, calling out to my mother. “Susannah, come into the bathroom. There’s something you need to see in here.”
My mom tiptoes up behind him, barefoot in her pale nightgown. “Wyatt! What the hell are you doing here?”
“Just making sure Annabelle’s safe,” he reassures her through gritted teeth, still grinning.
“We can do that just fine without your help,” my dad counters. “Maybe you’ve forgotten about the night when I scared the bad guy off with a loaded rifle.”
“No, sir, I haven’t forgotten. I suppose she will be just fine without me. You’re right, sir. I’ll be going now.” He keeps rambling. “If Oliver wakes up and realizes I’m not home yet he’ll be worried.”
“Here, let me show you out and lock up behind you.” My dad gestures toward the stairs and Wyatt exits the scene of our little drama, with my father following in his wake.
Mom turns to me. “Annabelle, what were you two thinking?” She blushes. “Never mind. I know what you were thinking and so does your father. We were young once, too. Now go back to bed and no more late night visits.”
Red-faced and flustered I stumble back to my room, creep back into bed and bundle the covers up around my ears. It’s freezing.
“Oh no, you’ve caused enough trouble tonight. I need to get some sleep so I can get up early tomorrow and run.”
The room begins to warm up again. As Anthony backs away I can hear his beautiful laugh, diminishing by degrees and finally fading completely away, into the night.
Chapter 33
He’s Not Himself Today
A couple of days later, Wyatt finally gets up the courage to come over and face my parents again. He apologizes for intruding during the middle of the night and they accept his apology. They know I’m not completely innocent; I didn’t kick him out after he snuck in. We share the blame for the whole debacle and Wyatt once again feels comfortable dropping by unannounced and coming over when I invite him, which is almost every day. Sometimes we go out for pizza or ice cream together. Sometimes we go to his house instead of mine. The days pass by pretty uneventfully and we spend a lot of time with one another.
During these times, Anthony often opens the door to Wyatt’s soul and steps through it, so we can be together, fooling around, watching TV, eating and doing other stuff that friends do when they’re hanging out. We try ping pong, but Anthony stinks at it; worse than Wyatt. Maybe because he never got to play any games when he was alive, or maybe because he’s in Wyatt’s body which possesses absolutely no ping pong skills. Anyway, Anthony and I have fun. The newness of everyday experiences never wears off for him. He always expresses his astonishment and amazement, even when something ordinary happens; something I take for granted.
He loves goofy comedies on TV, the stupider the better—shows where people fall or trip and crash into things. Someone landing unexpectedly on his butt sends him into high-pitched giggles. And he has the most unrestrained belly laugh I’ve ever heard. Wyatt has a loud, kind of obnoxious, laugh, which I love to hear. But Anthony’s laugh is even more ridiculous than Wyatt’s. It’s a big, repetitive howl. Maybe it comes from the bottom of two souls, his own and Wyatt’s; maybe Anthony lets loose so loudly because he never laughed when he was alive. For whatever reason, his laugh sounds outrageous and uninhibited and beautiful to me.
Sunday I’m out raking leaves for my parents and Wyatt stops by. Naturally, he offers to help, so I can be done faster and we can hang out. Then Anthony takes over. Boom. Wyatt’s gone. Anthony and I rake the leaves into a huge pile and run and jump in it like six year olds. I have leaves tangled in my hair and tons of leaf crumbs all the way down my pants and in my underwear. It itches, too.
“We’re going to have to rake all of this up again!” I fake yell at Anthony. I’m not mad, even though we’ve made more work for ourselves. I don’t care because we’re having so much fun.
Instead of grabbing the rakes and starting up again, we both flop down onto the ground, still giggling. I stretch out on my back in the leaves to catch my breath and stare up at the dazzling blue infinity. Anthony lies down beside me and grins.
A small, brown and orange-faced, blue-eyed dragonfly lands on my bent knee. Anthony rolls over onto his side, crooks his elbow and props his head up on one hand. Pointing at the insect, he zeroes in on it slowly and nudges it with the tip of his index finger. The dragonfly climbs onto Anthony’s finger and allows itself to be carried up close to his face.
“Dragonfly,” Anthony pronounces. I know he found the word in Wyatt’s brain, somewhere, filed away.
“We usually have tons of them in the summer. They fly over from the swamp. Their larvae feed on mosquitoes and the adults, like this one, snatch small insects in flight and eat them.”
“You know a lot about the creatures that live in this area.”
“I love the creatures. I love the forests and the meadows. The swamp fascinates me.”
“Me too.” The dragonfly stares one more time at Anthony’s face, rubs his tiny mandibles together and then takes off.
“Weird. He’s flying solo and it’s so late in the season for dragonflies, even if it’s warmer than usual for this time of year,” I wonder out loud.
“Will he be okay through the winter?”
“I hope so. He’s called a Bog Haunter. They’re on the endangered list. We don’t see too many of them, even in the summer.”
“Up from the swampland, the Bog Haunter, daring to venture close to civilization on a beautiful, warm autumn afternoon,” Anthony says and chuckles.
“He’s flying over that way.” I point toward the woods. “Going back to haunt the bogs. He’ll return when it gets warm again.” I stare upward and follow the dragonfly’s brave path, through the air, higher and higher, until he fades out of view, up above the treetops at the edge of the woods.
As I lie on my back in the leaves, Anthony leans over me. His head blocks the sun and I gaze into Wyatt’s face, but Anthony’s soul is behind those dark eyes now. We stare at each other for a whole minute, at least. Then he says, “You look perplexed.”
I answer him back. “You look mystified.”
“Are you rattled?”
“Are you stumped?” I love this game we’ve just invented.
“You’ve become unhinged.”
“No, I’m just ruffled.” It’s like ping pong but with words.
“Befogged.”
“Flabbergasted.”
“Befuddled?
”
“Maybe bemused.”
“No, completely confounded.”
“Discombobulated.”
“Flustered.”
“Nonplussed.”
“Muddled, addle-pated and bewildered out of my mind.”
“I give up.” I don’t know anymore words that mean “confused”. He can’t beat me at the real game of ping pong, but he wins our first match of word ping pong easily.
“I love saying words. I want to speak them forever, back and forth, with you, Annabelle.”
“They’re Wyatt’s words. It’s his mind and his voice.” I’m starting to worry about Anthony’s conscience. He doesn’t seem to have one when it comes to taking over Wyatt’s body so he can be with me.
“But they’re my words right now, even if it’s not for long. Do you want to know how I feel?”
He rolls over onto his back and lies there, with his head turned sideways, looking at me. I look back at his now serious face.
“Yes, I want to know how you feel, Anthony.”
“I feel angry at anyone who would hurt you. I feel a treacherous kind of rage.”
“Do you mean that you’d like to hurt Mike Donahue?”
“Yes, I’d do anything to protect you from him.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s okay. You don’t need to thank me. Good intentions have nothing to do with it. I don’t feel that way by choice. I can’t help it. If Mike Donahue was here right now, while I’m in Wyatt’s body, I wouldn’t be able to control the violence. It would erupt. I think I’d kill him. It’s that kind of anger.”
“Scary. Especially for Wyatt because he’d have to deal with the consequences, even though he didn’t kill anyone.”
“I think he’d do the same thing, though. He hates Donahue as much as I do and he wants to protect you like I do.”
“So it would be okay, because you and Wyatt feel the same way toward him?”
“Yes. But we don’t always feel the same way. I don’t get jealous, like Wyatt does. I’m happy that Wyatt and you love each other. I don’t feel jealous or angry. You deserve to be loved and kept safe.”
“So do you, Anthony. Everyone let you down when you were at Wild Wood.”
“I’m beginning to see that now. I’m starting to feel like I deserve love. I love you, Annabelle. Do you love me?”
“Yes, but not like I love Wyatt. I love you like I love my friends. Maybe I love you more than I love my friends, but not the way I love Wyatt.”
“Wyatt feels angry if another boy tries to be close to you or touch you.”
“Yes, he does.”
“He gets mad when I touch you, even though I touch you with his hands.”
“It’s normal when two people are together, like Wyatt and I are, for them to feel jealous if someone else gets too close to the other person. He’s not controlling his hands when you take over. You’re controlling his hands and you’re touching me and Wyatt doesn’t like it. He’s only human.”
“And I’m not.”
“Sorry, but that isn’t a bad thing. It’s like you’re above it. You’re too spiritual to feel jealous. Your soul has moved beyond those kinds of feelings.”
“But still, I love you. That’s a human feeling.”
I turn my face away first because I can’t keep looking into his eyes. I can tell that he wants to kiss me. And then we’d both be cheating on Wyatt. Anthony’s a guest in Wyatt’s body and it would be rude to kiss the host’s girlfriend. I’m glad he doesn’t try. I’m not sure how I’d respond if he did.
No one ever showed Anthony any affection when he was alive. This moment with me in the leaves is his only chance, but he knows he shouldn’t kiss me. Even though the lips are Wyatt’s lips, it’s different. The decision to act wouldn’t be Wyatt’s decision. It would be Anthony’s.
I can tell when Wyatt isn’t Wyatt in a couple of ways. His skin feels cold and his smile is different, newer-looking, like he’s learning how to smile but hasn’t mastered it yet. He’s experimenting with different eye crinkles and smile widths but hasn’t found the ones that suit him best. As I’m thinking about this, I mull over why it took so long for Anthony to learn to smile. He never experienced happiness. No one ever loved him. He had no reason to smile, ever, when he was alive.
His parents abandoned him when he was too young to even form any thoughts that could later become memories. At Wild Wood they locked him away, in a room with only one small window. The doctors restrained him so they could control him. His caretakers strapped him onto one of those horrifying tables we saw. They force-fed him medication. He never, in his lifetime, experienced friendship. He never felt even a casual, friendly connection, like when a cashier at a store is nice to you. He never shared a laugh or even a smile with another human being.
The depth of this realization pulls me down into a black hole, a vacuum; everything good in this world was denied to Anthony. He truly was the Lonesome Boy. Until now, he had no happiness in his poor abandoned soul.
I care about him because he needs me. How can I let Anthony leave this earth not knowing what it feels like to connect with another soul? He needs to see love in my eyes, hear it in my voice and sense it when I touch him.
I know if I kiss Wyatt when he isn’t himself, when he’s Anthony, everything will be different. Wyatt smells like the soap and the shampoo he uses, but underneath that, when we kiss, he smells like peppermint leaves and clover; green and alive. What if Anthony kisses me and he smells dusty and old, like a crypt that hasn’t been opened in years? I don’t want to risk it. But even if I’m offering Anthony only the deep affection of a true friend, he feels loved for the first time ever. That will have to be enough, for now.
Chapter 34
I Long for Freedom
The next few weeks pass uneventfully and I hate this feeling of boredom. The waiting and watching start to seem worse than my fear of Mike Donahue’s next attack. Mom and Dad have me on a very short leash and I long for the freedom I took for granted before. The bad guy holds me prisoner even though he’s nowhere near me. I’m dying for my captivity to end. For my mother to bend the rules, just a little.
It’s late Friday afternoon and the last track practice of the season has just ended. Nathaniel drops me off in the driveway and Jeff walks me to the door. No one in my life, not even the dog, is willing to leave my safety to chance. I kiss Jeff’s cold wet nose and look up to wave goodbye to Nathaniel. He grins and waves from the driver’s seat. As I walk into the kitchen, I’m disappointed that no food smells float out to greet me. I’m starving. My mom pokes her head out of the pantry where she has obviously been working on one of her herbal concoctions. She looks disheveled and comforting. A few stray flower petals decorate her chaotic curls and her reading glasses are sliding down her nose. She looks like home.
“Everything okay, Annabelle?”
Her seemingly harmless question irritates me right out of feeling pleased to see her. I resist the temptation to complain about how I’m sick of everyone asking me if everything’s okay, tired of being escorted everywhere I go and hankering for freedom. Wyatt’s latest big fat genius idea is to have the two biggest guys on the cross-country team flank me every time I head down the trails for practice runs, kind of like how the secret service guards the president everywhere he goes. It’s nice that my boyfriend’s branching out and making new friends. Until recently he mostly hung out with his soccer teammates, but lately he’s been making an effort to get to know some of the kids on my team. He told them I’d been getting prank calls on my cell and they said they’d be happy to help him out by keeping an eye on me and making sure I stayed safe.
I never get to be alone anymore, ever. Either Wyatt or Nathaniel shuffles me back and forth to school like I’m a prisoner going from jail to the courtroom. The soccer team made the playoffs, so I haven’t seen much of Wyatt lately. There are a lot of practices. I’ve been to every game and they’re intense. The Eastfield team has eliminated two rival towns so fa
r. If they keep going they could end up in the final game for the state championship. The next game is this weekend in Somerset and Meg and I want to drive down together. I’m hoping my parents say it’s okay. I want to hop into the old Prizm and drive somewhere—anywhere, as long as it’s with no bodyguards.
Anthony checks up on me now and then, in between visits with Wyatt, but the case is at a standstill and even the ghost is bored by my monotonous existence. Our earthbound investigation is stagnating.
The cops can’t find Mike Donahue. Oliver and Jackson questioned Dr. Peterson and Dr. Summers, but the psychiatrist and the pediatrician said they knew nothing about the death of Daniel Warren or his nonexistent roommate. The three people we’ve found who worked at the hospital in the mid 1980’s claimed both ignorance and forgetfulness when questioned about Daniel Warren and a mysterious patient named Anthony. Everyone refuses to acknowledge Anthony ever existed, except Nurse Mary McGuire in her secret note and Daniel in his journal. Unfortunately, neither of these documents can be authenticated. They were written over twenty years ago and left to rot; hidden at Wild Wood. Plus, even in the journal and the letter, the Lonesome Boy remains nameless.
Also, we acquired both of these secret documents through illegal and unofficial means, while we were trespassing on government property. So the police could never use them to prove anything in court. Only Uncle Johnny knows the source of most of our clues has been dead for more than two decades. The rest of the Eastfield police force would never believe us. All this adds up to frustration.
Even Anthony can’t tell us anything new. He wants to know what happened on that night in February of 1986 more than anyone, but can’t remember. He can only think coherently now because he’s been inside of Wyatt’s mind. Back in the 80’s his thoughts were chaotic. He wants to help with the investigation but he’s stuck in the same holding pattern that’s frustrating the hell out of me.
The state of absolute safety which I’m forced to live in has become a boring place to be, especially in contrast to the excitement I got used to in the beginning.
Enter If You Dare Page 26
